


Triptych

by Indian_Ink



Series: Every Breath, Every Hour [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Het, Background Relationships, Background Slash, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, an attempt at an action sequence is made, several attempts at humour are made
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 09:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10511310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indian_Ink/pseuds/Indian_Ink
Summary: Lúcio and Hana discover that the person fated to complete their soulmate triad is a highly destructive, slightly off-his-rocker anarchist. Sometimes finding your soulmate doesn't guarantee an instant happy ending.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a companion/sister fic to [A Thousand Words](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8252945/chapters/18910331) by good NoirSongbird. This takes place in-between chapters 4 and 5 of its sister fic, but hopefully I've written this in such a way that it can be read on its own while still making sense.
> 
> (There are probably five million things wrong with this but I've been working on it since November so. 4+ months. anywho)

When Hana Song is fourteen years old, she enters the world of online gaming knowing exactly what her handle will be, because it is tattooed on her left wrist. Her soulmate calls her _D.Va_.

Fame comes to Hana and she loves it, flaunts it, breathes it. Meeting her fans and signing autographs is nearly as exhilarating as rushing into battle, because she knows that one of them, somewhere, has her words.

* * *

A chorus of shouts and gasps go up from the crowd pressed close to the store’s front window. “Did she just blow up her mech?” Danilo shouts, practically in his ear, and Lúcio’s heart leaps into his throat. Danilo isn’t his soulmate, of course - this is hardly the first thing he’s said to Lúcio - but the words were so _close_.

He looks back at the news report, live from the battlefront in South Korea as MEKA took on that mammoth omnic from the sea. The cameras have lost track of Hana Song, the professional gamer known as D.Va, but her voice is coming in loud and clear over the audio comms.

Maybe he’ll tune into one of her streams, sometime.

* * *

She’s trying to find an outlet for her steadily dying phone while she eats, when Reinhardt makes his entrance, slamming one of the cafeteria doors open so hard, it bangs against the wall. It’s a miracle she doesn’t drop either her phone or her spring roll.

“Feel free to use the kitchen anytime you wish,” Reinhardt says to someone she can’t see from her angle. “It’s not as fully equipped as some of our other Watchpoints, but it has an oven, if you like to bake.”

“Whoa-hoa, you tellin’ me you bake, Reinhardt?” the person replies, and Hana freezes mid-chew because _she knows that voice_.

Reinhardt chuckles. “Oh, no no. But…” He lowers his voice, though it’s still loud enough that she can hear him. “Pharah _might,_ but you didn’t hear it from me.”

The someone laughs, and it can’t be- it’s gotta be-

 _Be cool, Hana,_ she thinks, but then Reinhardt spots her, turns, and that is definitely Lúcio Correia dos Santos beside him, the guy behind the album she’s been practically listening to on repeat since she downloaded it.

“Ah, Lúcio, my friend, allow me to introduce you to-”

“D.Va, in the flesh?” Lúcio says, and Hana’s heart leaps up and clogs her throat, which isn’t good because she still needs to swallow the food in her mouth.

No way. _No way._

He lets out a whoop, and glides over the linoleum on those giant glowing rollerblades she’s seen in videos online. Reinhardt strolls behind him, beaming at the fact that there was another D.Va fan in the Watchpoint.

Lúcio grabs her hands, even though they’re full and grins. “Can I get your autograph?”

 _He_ wants _her_ autograph? She would laugh, but she focuses on gulping down her food and forcing out words instead. “O-only if I can get yours too! I love your new album, I’ve been listening to it nonstop-”

“Wait, what did you say?”

She rolls her eyes, grinning. “Oh c’mon, don’t tell me you’re that humble! You gotta know-”

“No, no, before that,” he says, his excitement replaced with a keen focus. “Before the new album thing.”

“Oh. Uh. ‘Only if I can-’” But Hana never bothers finishing, because Lúcio takes off one of his gloves and the words written on his right wrist has done it for her.

She puts her phone and food down on the closest table and peels back the left sleeve of her shirt so he can read her left wrist.

They stare at the matching words, and eventually into each other’s eyes. Hana can feel her face going red, because she knows she should do _something_ , but none of her thoughts, not even her earlier _be cool_ , come when she calls.

“Mein Gott,” Reinhardt breathes beside them.

Hana manages to unleash a series of squeals at the exact same moment Lúcio starts to laugh, eyes wide, and throws herself into hugging him. 

Reinhardt spends the next half hour with the two of them practically under his arm, announcing the happy news to every agent within earshot like some kind of town crier.

* * *

Social media _explodes_.

* * *

“So. We’re soulmates, right?”

Hana turns to him, chews her gum, blows the slowest bubble he’s ever seen, and lets it pop. 

Lúcio manages to keep a straight face for a good few seconds before he laughs and Hana sighs dramatically, slumping in the swivel chair. “We literally _just_ posted our second video where we clarified that!”

He scoots closer to the foot of his bed so they’re closer. “Rhetorical question, Hana.”

“I _know!_ ” She pops her gum again, defiantly. “I was just playing along.”

“It’s just... We haven’t talked about…” He lays a warm hand on top of hers, and she straightens, catching the nervous look in his eye.

Hana waits for him to speak, but Lúcio’s oddly silent. But then she realizes what he’s likely thinking about, and why he was hesitating. She giggles.

“I was kind of worried too, until now.” She pushes up her _right_ sleeve, showing Lúcio the words someone else, someone she hadn’t met yet, would say to her.

Her- _their_ \- other soulmate.

Lúcio lets out a low, slow whistle, the one that she’s learned quite quickly means he’s thinking. “Whoever they are, we’re gonna meet them on a mission together.” He takes off the numerous colourful bracelets on his left wrist, gifts his friends had given him before he left Rio to join Overwatch, to show her his other words.

He looks between the two sets of words again - his were a short phrase, while Hana’s was a longer sentence. “Apparently,” he says, apprehension stealing into his voice, “they really like explosions.”

Hana laughs. “Sounds like my kind of soulmate.”

* * *

Winston finishes the debrief. Silence descends upon the meeting room.

“So what you’re saying is,” Pharah says in a strained voice, “is that we’re going to be rescuing a couple of arsonists, thieves, and _murderers?_ ”

Winston has the good grace to look absolutely ashamed underneath her glare for a moment. It’s quite a sight, an embarrassed gorilla, his massive hands curling tightly around his clipboard.

“To be completely fair,” he says after a moment, “Agents Genji and Hanzo have similar... um…” 

He looks to the wall the Shimada brothers lean against for help. The brothers glance at one another, then back to Winston.

“Unsavoury,” Hanzo supplies.

“Unsavoury origins,” Winston finishes, badly hiding a relieved smile. “And technically, all of us are breaking the law anyway. The Petras Act, remember?”

Pharah continues to glare, but she has no reply for that.

“Any volunteers?” Winston asks.

“I know you said the police have got a good trace on ‘em, but if these two are anywhere near good at slippin’ away as that bounty implies they are…” McCree speaks up. “I’m goin’. Need an outlaw to catch an outlaw.”

“Aye, me too,” Torbjörn says. “Sounds like whether it’s the police or Talon, there’s gonna be a firefight, and that skinny hunched over one needs all the proper armour he can get.”

Lúcio glances up at the screen at the smaller of the two Junkers, face blackened with soot and hair aflame. He wonders if Hana, sitting beside him at the meeting table, is thinking what he’s thinking. The two of them would likely meet their other soulmate on a mission, because they mention Hana’s mech to him, and they had a very blasé outlook on the possibility of being blown up judging by what they would say to Hana.

According to _A Moment in Crime_ , Jamison “Junkrat” Fawkes specializes in explosives, arson, and demolition (and barbecue). Definitely had a potential for being over-familiar with explosions. This could be it. This could be their other soulmate, and the thought twists his gut into knots. Pharah was right - these two were murderers and thieves.  
But, destiny is destiny, isn’t it? They would meet the Junkers eventually, whether they went along on the mission or not. 

Lúcio looks across the table to Angela and Zenyatta before raising his hand. “If it’s all right with my fellow healers, I’ll take this one.”

“You’re all gonna need a tank, especially if the big guy turns on you, and Reinhardt’s still technically not allowed on the field with his bad ankle,” Hana pipes up.

Reinhardt gives her an offended look. “You weren’t supposed to remember that.”

Mercy leans in front of Zenyatta to send him a dry glare. Hana considers that the perfect comeback by itself and laughs.

“You sure you two will be able to handle it?” Tracer asks, leaning forward to put her elbows up on the table and lacing her fingers together. In the low light her grin looks positively _devious_. “You aren’t gonna get distracted snogging each other?”

Hana turns very red, red enough that Lúcio’s sure anyone can see it in the dark, and struggles for something to say. Any teasing about the two of them being soulmates, especially from her new unofficial big brothers, had been met with Hana's quick wits any other time. Maybe having all the current members of Overwatch gathered in one room and staring at her had something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, Lúcio swoops in to the rescue. “Um, excuse me, Lena. It’s pronounced _beijando_.”

Lena giggles and the agents start to disperse.

As he stands up, Lúcio glances down at Hana, who remains seated for just a moment longer before getting up and joining him with a smile. He decides not to ask about the way she had balled her hands into fists so hard her knuckles whitened under the table. Not now, anyway.

* * *

The white light from his phone screen is starting to put a strain on his eyes, but the blank text message mocks him. He can’t turn in yet, not when something had put a major dent in Hana’s pep and he couldn’t figure out a good way to ask about it.

He’s just deleted his entire sentence for the third time when someone knocks quietly at the door. Without waiting for a response, a faint silhouette he recognizes as Hana slides the door open.

...At least he’s pretty sure it’s her. Lúcio can only squint into the darkness at the figure, unable to make out much with only his phone shining down on him. “Hana?”

“No, it’s-a me, Mario,” Hana replies. She doesn’t sound like she’s in a joking mood, but he snorts a laugh without meaning to. “Can I... come hang out for a bit?”

“Oh- yeah! Absolutely,” he says, a little taken aback that she even had to ask. He shuffles over in the bed to make as much room as possible without falling off the edge, moving a pillow over to the other side for her.

Hana makes no delay in falling onto the covers and face planting into it. A muffled moan rises up from the gloom.

Lúcio shakes his head, and turns off his phone to let his eyes adjust. “Man, I _knew_ something was up. You wanna talk about it?”

Hana turns her head so she isn’t speaking into the pillow. “Mmmmaybe in a bit,” she says.

Lúcio waits for a moment in the dark, watching the digital display of the alarm clock on the bedside table. It’s two in the morning. It’s a good thing the Orca’s quick travel time meant they didn’t have to set out too early.

“Is it about the mission tomorrow?” Lúcio asks, turning onto his side and propping himself up on an elbow. “It is our first big one.”

“Mm. No, not really. I mean, I’ve been on plenty of missions with MEKA before Winston ever heard of me. Well, okay-” she points a finger nearly into his eye, “ _don’t_ tell anyone, but it is _kinda_ intimidating that Torbjörn is coming with us. He was like, one of the founding members of the old Overwatch right?”

“Yeah, him and Reinhardt. But you got nothin’ to worry about there, they both love you! You’ve heard Torb yammer on about your mech, right? He thinks you’re great.”

“I _am_ great,” Hana agrees, and her wide smug smirk is back for a moment. 

They’ve known each other for only a couple of weeks and he can’t think of a single time it hasn’t made his heart thump in his chest. Even when she was lording her latest win over the entire living room, her downed opponents groaning and rolling their eyes, even when _he_ had been completely destroyed in virtual combat by her, it was beautiful.

He hates to see it go, and hates knowing his next question will cause its departure. “Is it about what Tracer said?”

For a second, he sees the hurt in her eyes, but she quickly turns it into a glare. “Stupid soulmate thing,” she mumbles, and he laughs softly in the dark. “It’s _creepy_ how well you can read me.”

“Hey, right back at’cha,” he says. 

He had led a revolution back home, and though he and the people of Rio had come out on top, revolutions had their consequences. Sometimes, he’d get texts or e-mails from friends or family that would turn his blood to ice in his veins. The most recent one had been from Francisco, saying he thought he saw a car with dark windows lurk outside the animal shelter for too long. Maybe it was just Francisco being a worrywart - he had been for as long as Lúcio had known him - but there was always that lingering _maybe not_.

Hana seemed to have a knack for knowing when these messages came in. He’d laugh it off around everyone else, but once the room cleared and it was just the two of them and a game console, she’d ask for the truth.

Now it’s her turn to sigh and fidget. She runs a finger over the words on his wrist - _only if I can get yours too_. “It’s not even _really_ that,” she decides. “I mean, Lena teases everyone. She’s way worse with Hanzo and McCree.”

“To say the least.”

“It’s just- I get it, I’m the youngest. Even with you I’m _seven_ years younger.” She glances up and stares him dead in the eye. “But I’m more than just my age, you know?

“It’s like I said, I’ve been on plenty of missions. I don’t let _anything_ distract me. I’ve gone onto the battlefield with people I know way better than McCree or Torbjörn _or_ you, and I know how to keep an eye on them and keep them close while still moving forward.”

“You’re not a noob, is what you’re saying,” Lúcio deadpans and Hana laughs.

“Basically!”

“And you’ve been in the army for how long?”

Hana scrunched her face in thought, going backwards through the whirlwind months leading up to the day an e-mail from a world-saving gorilla ended up in her inbox. “Mm, a year now, I think.”

Lúcio lets out a long low whistle. “ _Damn._ Only a year, and Winston was sending you an offer to fight alongside some of the best.”

“Hey.” She pokes him in the chest. “Right back at’cha.”

He smiles fondly before continuing, idly running a strand of her hair between his fingers. “But yeah, to have all of that reduced to just your age? That’s gotta be frustrating. If someone teases you about going on a mission again you should definitely call them out on it.” He pauses. “But maybe don’t _piss off_ any of the ones who saved the world.”

“That would probably be all of them, at some point, and I make no promises.” Hana shifts closer, until they’re practically nose to nose. “You know, it’s funny that Lena was teasing about us making out, when we haven’t even kissed yet.”

She very deliberately quirks her eyebrows up and down.

Lúcio leans forward and presses a kiss... to her forehead.

“There,” he says, with a triumphant grin. “Fixed that.”

“Oh, _come on--_ ” Hana pounces, and even though he rolls in an attempt to avoid her, Lúcio distinctly feels the graze of her lips on his.

And then they both fall out of the bed.

* * *

“I’m telling you, I hit my head on the bedside table!” Lúcio complains as they make their way to his door. He rubs again at what he swears is a bump on the back of his head.

“Eh, you’re a healer, you’ll be fine,” Hana replies through a yawn, stretching her arms up over her head.

“Still your fault,” he grumbles. He’s about to grab her by the sides and initiate a tickle fight on their way to breakfast, but the door swooshes open and Hana stops in the doorway.

“Hey Genji, Hanzo.” The two brothers turn from where they were apparently huddled over a phone by a door a little ways down the hall. Hana leans back and smacks the back of her hand against Lúcio’s chest. “Here to wish me and Lú luck on our first big official mission?”

“Actually, yes,” Hanzo says slowly, his eyes flicking over to Lúcio and back. 

“You weren’t answering the door, and your phone is still in there,” Genji explains, jerking a thumb towards the room. They all hear the insistent chime of Hana’s smartphone inside.

“Oh, I must’ve left it in there last night,” Hana says, and skips down to her room, disappearing inside.

“Oh. Wait. Last night…” Genji says, his gleaming helmet tilting slowly towards the younger man still standing in his doorway.

The doorway he and Hana had come out of together. After a night together _alone_.

Lúcio remembers with sudden crystal clarity all the times he had witnessed Hanzo ruffle Hana’s hair affectionately, or Genji challenge her to a rematch in a fighting game. 

He also remembers that the Shimada brothers are former members of the yakuza.

Lúcio feels his grin freeze on his face. Lúcio prays for a moment to anyone or anything that will listen.

Hana Song answers his prayers, coming back into the hallway. “Yeah, last night,” she says, somehow having not missed a beat about the silent realization the brothers were having. She walks right past both of them, not glancing up from her phone. “I was a little nervous about the mission so I went to talk to _my soulmate_ about it, and I fell asleep in his room. Also-” She turns on her heel to face them. “ _My soulmate_ and I are legal adults and know how to responsibly take care of our bodies, if you catch my drift. _Also_ ,” she finally looks up and fixes both of them in a piercing glare, “just because _you two_ are busy having drama with _your soulmates_ does not mean you can go causing it for me and mine, so don’t even _think_ about pulling that ‘big brother’ crap on me.”

“Whoa-hoa, hold up, Genji found his soulmate?” Lúcio asks, his curiosity overriding his want to stand in silent awe of his... girlfriend? Were they another level of official, now that they’d kissed? He’d have to ask at some point.

“Oh, did I not tell you?” Hana asks, her previous ferocity completely gone from her voice. She furrows her brow and mumbles to herself. “I could’ve sworn I told you.”

“ _Hanzo_ is the one creating drama in his case,” Genji attempts to defend himself.

Hanzo bristles. “I am n-”

“Oh, yes, you are,” Hana agrees, grinning.

Familiar birdsong drifts down the hall from behind them, announcing the arrival of Ganymede and her constant Omnic companion. 

Bastion’s lumbering steps and intimidating height had set Hana’s blood rushing when she had first met them, but Reinhardt and Zenyatta had helped her change her thinking. It helped to think of the old Omnic as a unique sort of MEKA unit, one that was able to move around on its own, there to protect them. After that, friendship with the gentle giant came easily.

Bastion waves to them all, their shoulders curling inwards shyly, before raising their hand to approximately where their mouth would be if they had one, as though holding up food. Mei was working to teach them sign language, since their voice box seemed unable or unwilling to learn regular speech, and Bastion was getting good use out of the ‘eat’ signal. They somehow seemed to _know_ when some of the more scientifically-minded agents had gotten a bit too wrapped up in their personal projects.

“Hey, we were on our way! You _know_ we wouldn't forget, Bastion,” Lúcio says, putting an arm over Hana’s shoulders as they join up with the Omnic and their bird. “I have this theory that Athena sends ‘em out to check up on us, since she can’t really do it herself.”

“Aww, like our robot mom and dad! Er- mom and mom? Mom and Bastion!” Hana decides, and Bastion beeps and boops happily.

The Shimada brothers watch them go. “Don’t give me that look,” Hanzo says into the silence, and Genji laughs.

* * *

The hot wind blows over the dustbowl that is the Outback, and Hana’s team stops to huddle in the shadow of her mech. She squints out across the sand, heat rising from the ground turning the abandoned town in the distance into a wobbling mirage. “You sure they’re _there?_ ” she asks. “Didn’t we just pass a canyon full of hiding places?”

“Sure as I can be, sugarpie,” McCree says, holding his hat to his head against the wind. Hana makes a face at the nickname and McCree chuckles. “They’re _Junkers_. Their whole livelihood is based on repurposin’ scrap.” He nods out towards the crumbling buildings on the horizon. “Considerin’ they’re desperate enough to call us in for help, they’re bound to be low on ammo. They can run and they can hide, but they can’t reload. Based on their last known location, this is the closest place they can go for supplies.”

“Not bad,” Torbjörn huffs, and then carefully makes his way down the steep hill towards the town. The rest follow after him.

Calling the place a ‘town’ is probably a bit too generous - there’s no sign of any shops or a community centre. It’s more of a ghost village than anything else, consisting of several squat apartment buildings, a school with only a few classrooms, and some type of combination car garage-bus stop.

It’s there that Torbjörn points out the steel bear trap mostly hidden under a gnarled dead bush. He motions for them to stop and listen, and sure enough, they can all hear something big rustling around inside, something like an overgrown, well-

“Looks like we found our rat problem,” Torbjörn says, then puts his hand to his mouth to shout. “HEY! Anyone in there?”

“Rat and hog rescue team at your service,” McCree calls in after him.

There’s silence for a few seconds, then a loud voice replies, “‘BOUT TIME!” There’s a lot more rustling, some mumbling and clanking, and then one of the faces from Winston’s debriefing bursts with sudden speed out of the darkness and shakes Torbjörn’s metal arm quickly enough to send the engineer shaking up and down. “Jamison Fawkes, nice to meet’cha!”

Torbjörn easily yanks his arm out of the junker’s grip, and gives him a scalding glare. “We understand yer bein’ pursued.”

“Oh, yeah. _Nasty_ buncha buggers - black combat gear, gas mask do-hickeys with red eyes, some sorta…” Junkrat wheels a hand about, searching for a word, “bird foot on their forehead? Never listen to a word I say.”

“Imagine that,” Torbjörn mutters under his breath.

“Talon,” McCree growls, and Lúcio sees his jaw clench like he was missing one of his cigars to chew on.

“Issat what they’re called? That-” Junkrat cuts himself off as he looks McCree up and down. An exasperated look crosses the cowboy’s face in the split second before the junker lets out a high, loud cackle. “ _What_ is that get-up, mate?”

Something inside the garage rumbles like a stampede, and the second junker, Roadhog, bursts through the too-small, too-weak doorframe, plaster scattering to the air, shoving Junkrat forward to stumble against Lúcio-

There is the very distinct sound of a single bullet lodging into one of the Junker’s makeshift pauldrons.

The story Tracer had told Hana of the Widowmaker on King’s Row floods back into her mind, solid and clear as a diamond. All the sniper had needed here was one loud enough laugh to know where her target was and then- _One shot, one kill_ , Tracer had said. The Widowmaker would’ve killed Junkrat right in front of them had his massive bodyguard not realized and pushed him out of the way.

“Skiljer!” Torbjörn shouts, breaking Hana’s trance as he and McCree take off down the empty street, shoving feebly at Roadhog to signal him to follow. Hana reaches out with one of her mech’s fusion cannons to pick up Lúcio and the smaller Junker as best she can, then uses the boosters to take off in the opposite direction.

A tidal wave of robots rushes up to meet them. They look a little like the training robots back at the Watchpoint, but with long raptor-like legs and black rounded armour that makes them look like a swarm of beetles. 

Junkrat and Lúcio dive right in as soon as she lets them go, blowing the things apart, the Junker grabbing a frag launcher from somewhere on his skinny body. 

Hana stomps on one, crushing it like a tin can. Sparks fly out of it around her mech’s foot and her heart stutters. _Don’t be like Bastion or Zenyatta, don’t have a soul,_ some part of her thinks, but then she sees the red glare of their eyes all around her, red like the eyes that loom high, high above her in the darkness of her nightmares.

Hana grins.

Lúcio spins, skating backwards for a moment to watch the giant pink death machine barrel into a line of the bots. She’s been taking lessons from Reinhardt, it seems. His communicator crackles in his ear. He nearly misses it underneath the sound of Junkrat’s taunts. 

“Could really use your help over here, DJ,” McCree says. “The big guy’s a good shield, but he’ll run out of those canisters of his eventually.”

“Don’t know what canisters you’re talkin’ about, but how ‘bout I save the questions for when I’m healing everybody up on the Orca?”

“I can think of a way we can speed that process up,” Hana says. “Duck and cover, boys!”

Oh, shit. He knows that tone. He spots Junkrat off to his right across the street, laughing like a hyena as he kicks a bot _through_ its face with his peg leg. Lúcio jumps over two charging bots, grabs one of the Junker’s arms, and drags him into a gap between buildings to duck behind an empty, rusted dumpster.

In the street behind them, Hana’s mech self-destructs.

Silence, peppered with the sound of robots-turned-scrap thudding into the cracked pavement, reigns for a few seconds.

Slowly, cautiously, the two of them peer over the rim of the dumpster. Nothing seems to be moving, and they can see the edge of a smoking crater where D.Va’s mech once was.

“She... She blew up her mech?!” Junkrat exclaims, waving his hands towards the street as though that would magically put it back together.

“Yeah,” Lúcio sighs, a dreamy grin crossing his face as he rested his cheek against his hand, “beautiful, isn’t it?”

Junkrat _giggles_ , practically hopping up and down with glee. “You can say that again! That shiela’s probably just as crazy as me to pull a stunt like wait a tick.”

He stares down at his prosthetic forearm, watching the way his wrist twists, mouthing something silently, as though-

 _As though trying to remember what was written there before_ , Lúcio realizes. He remembers the night he had first seen Hana, when he and Danilo had stopped to watch the news along with a gathering crowd. Danilo had nearly shouted Lúcio's words, but they had been just slightly off. 

_She blew up her mech?_

“What was it you just said?” Junkrat asks, and Lúcio notices for the first time that his eyes are as orange as pieces of amber.

Hana rounds the corner and sprints toward them, letting out what must be a string of rapid fire Korean curses. “Cut the music!” she hisses as she passes them, continuing down the alleyway.

“...Shit, c’mon.” Lúcio swipes his free hand downward as he skates after her, shutting off the comforting thuds of the stereo on his back, the lights on his sonic amplifier going dark. Junkrat follows after him with a hunched over, lurching gait, attempting as best he can to keep quiet.

The alleyways split off to the right and left where they catch up to Hana. With the three of them regrouped, she lobs a stone down the right-hand passageway hard enough to knock over a garbage can, then signals in the opposite direction. It’s there they find a door swinging on its hinges, an open back entrance to the ground floor of one of the apartment buildings. They duck inside, peering carefully around the doorway to watch for whatever it was that had sent Hana running.

An ink black cloud twists into the air where they had been seconds before, somehow solidifying into a tall hooded figure. That’s about all Lúcio needs to see to make his blood run cold. He presses himself against the inside wall and holds his breath.

The seconds pass like years, but eventually Hana and Junkrat manage to tear their eyes away from the alley. “It went down the other path, but it’ll come this way once it doesn’t find us,” Hana whispers. “We need to get back to the Orca ASAP.”

Junkrat straightens up to scan the room for ideas, then grins. “I got an idea,” he says in his version of a whisper, which is really just a slightly quieter version of his regular speaking voice. He points out the run-down stairwell he had spotted. “If we can get to the roof, I can use my mines to blast us over the rooftops!” He pulls a big yellow concussion mine from... somewhere, and shows them.

Hana glances over him, wondering just _where_ he managed to hide an example of a home-made mine on his skinny form. “Seriously?” she whispers. She had meant to sound impatient, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Junkrat looks at his mine, turning it in his hand so his grinning logo spray-painted in the centre supposedly looks back. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m like... 80, 85% sure it won’t blow us up.”

Hana nearly drops her gun. She’s known that sentence her entire life. She notices the word tattooed on the inside of his wrist, showing underneath the mine he’s holding up. _Seriously?_ it reads.

She spares a quick glance at Lúcio, who’s also noticed the tattoo, his mouth slightly agape.

“Better than nothing!” she decides, and runs away from her second soulmate towards the stairs.

Lúcio takes the lead, gliding up the walls of the narrow stairway. Every one of Hana and Junkrat’s steps kick dust into the air, the old wood groaning loudly. On their way past the third floor, a heavy chill falls over them, as though winter had suddenly descended on the Outback.

“Didja hear that?” Junkrat asks, looking around the stairway.

She tunes out the voices coming from the comm in her ear - Torbjörn yelling “ _MOLTEN CORE!_ ” and Lúcio, continuing the climb towards the top floor, egging him on. Junkrat was right. There had been someone, _something_ else talking.

_Death comes..._

Junkrat doesn’t even take the time to jump - he just starts firing on the stairs they had just come up from, and the shadows seem to flinch and writhe around the grenades. “Time to go!” Hana says, grabbing one of his bandoliers and tugging.

“LÚ!” she yells up, dragging Junkrat and herself haphazardly up the stairs as he continues to hold off the... shadow _thing_ with grenades. “We need some help here!”

A few floors above them, Lúcio grabs the stair railing and brings himself to a skidding stop. Peering over the edge, he can see the two of them scrambling away from the same inky black cloud that had been in alleyway, but it’s quickly becoming more solid, the bone white shape of a skull starting to surface from within.

“Ey, papão!” he calls down, then launches himself over the stairs into the narrow space between flights. He’s not even really sure how he makes the jump, but his sonic amplifier hits the floor with a resounding pulse of music. Green light bursts into the air, tearing through the shadow, which reels back with a howl of pain.

“Go, go, go!” He says, launching himself back into a wall ride. This time, he’s sure to keep his teammates in sight, keeping just behind them.

“Thanks for the save, mate,” Junkrat says as he lurches up the stairs behind Hana.

“Don’t thank me just yet. We still gotta get you out of here,” Lúcio replies.

As they reach the top floor, he stands off to the side, letting the two others (his _soulmates_ , holy shit) pass him as he stands guard in case of any suspicious shadows. They split up, searching for a way to the roof.

“Here we are!” Junkrat calls from down a hall, and Hana and Lúcio join him beside a door marked with a ROOF ACCESS sign. 

All three breathe a sigh of relief. “Finally,” Lúcio says, opening the door.

Or he would have, if the door wasn’t locked.

“Wh- Are you _kidding_ me?” He says, pulling at the doorknob with both hands.

“Hold on, let a _professional_ locksmith handle this,” Junkrat says, pushing against Lúcio’s shoulder to get a look. He bends over the lock, squinting through the rusted keyhole, muttering to himself. “Ah, there’s the problem.”

“What, you gonna bobby pin it open?” Hana snarks, though she does cast a glance over the scorched mess of hair on his head. He was somehow hiding mines on his body, so who knew what else he had in store for them.

“Nope!” Junkrat brings the butt of his frag launcher down hard on the door.

The doorjamb, though old, only splinters a little. The rusty doorknob, however, comes loose from the handle and thumps onto the dusty carpet at their feet.

They stare at it for a few seconds.

“Huh. Well, that doesn’t usually happen,” Junkrat says into the silence.

“Okay, plan B,” Hana says hastily, grabbing his shoulder and pointing down the hall, where a window sits looking out at the dead town. Its windowsill is mottled with rot, the glass providing a place for what little moisture the environment had to gather in one place. “Do you think you can blow up that wall?”

“Do I think I can blow up that-” Junkrat doesn’t even bother to finish his mocking impression of her, firing blindly down the hall. The grenade explodes and sure enough, once the dust settles, there’s a hole where the window once was.

“Okay boys,” Hana says, stepping between them and grabbing one of their arms in each hand, “get ready to catch some air.”

“How much air we talkin’, ‘cause- agh-!” Junkrat’s cut off as Hana takes off in a full sprint towards the window, dragging them into a run with her.

They jump out of the building.

Time seems to slow to a trickle. Lúcio hadn’t been counting how many floors they had climbed, but he’s able to count seven windows down on the apartment building opposite them. He can see Junkrat’s flailing his arms in slow motion in the reflection of one of the grimy windows.

Hana taps something on her wrist, there she is a bright flash of pink light, and then he is slammed against something unyielding.

Surprisingly, it is not concrete, and he is not dead.

Lúcio blinks bursting lights from his eyes, trying to put the pieces together. It takes a few slow seconds, but he manages to recognize what he's looking at.

His face presses up against a curved, metal surface, and right next to him is a logo: _D.Va_ in elongated, stylized letters. All he had to do was glance down slightly and he could see Hana behind a pane of teal plexiglass, her hands gripping the controls and a confident smirk on her face. Wind whips past them, and he realizes the dull roar in his ears isn’t some sort of aftershock from the fall, but the mech’s boosters flaring at full force.

“Hana?” he asks, adjusting his position atop what he quickly realized was one of her fusion cannons.

“Yeah, Lú?” She sounds as though they’re back in Gibraltar, trying to decide what they’re going to have for lunch, even as she weaves past scattered Talon soldiers in the street.

“Did you call your mech in midair, after we jumped out of a building?”

“Yeah, I mean- we couldn’t go back down the stairs, not with that _thing_ in there. Also, I haven’t been able to get a signal anywhere but that high up so-” Her eyes flick to him. She bites down on her lip, attempting to hold back an exhilarated grin.

“You’re insane and you could’ve got us killed and I love you,” he says.

Hana laughs at the same time Junkrat does, who somehow manages to stand up atop the mech’s cannon, holding on to one of its dorsal fins for support. “That. Was. _Bonzer!_ ” he crows, then ducks down to grin at their pilot. “Can we do that again?”

“Maybe later,” Hana replies cheerily, though she does wrinkle her nose at the smell of his breath. They speed out of the town’s limits, past dead weeds. “Right now, we…”

She stops her mech, looking out at the scene before them.

A long line of armoured vehicles stretches across the desert between them and the Orca. Each one is easily as tall as Hana’s mech and each has two cannons, one on each side. Every cannon on their side points towards them, and the rest fire on the Orca, which swerves as best it can to avoid the shots. 

One hits its target and explodes in a ball of flame. McCree’s voice swears in Lúcio and Hana’s ears. “Y’all need to get over here _fast_ ,” he says. “The Orca’s not made for combat.”

“It’ll be faster to jump over the middle than to try and go around,” Hana mumbles to herself.

As if in reply to her, spiralling shadowy tendrils appear in the centre of the line, and the figure from the stairwell appears. Even from a distance, it was obvious the shotguns it held steadfast in their direction were gigantic.

“...Okay, I’ve got an idea,” Hana says. “Lú, get ‘We Move Together’ ready to go.”

“Got it,” he says, swiping a hand over his amplifier, reactivating the stereo on his back.

“Hey, _Junkbrat,_ ” she says, and jostles the cannon he’s standing on, to focus his attention back on her and not the spectre waiting for them. “Do you have something that could give those mines of yours an extra punch?”

A slow grin spreads over his pointy face. “Oh, waaay ahead of ya, shiela,” he says, and starts digging around in the pack at his hip. He pulls out a battered old tube of toothpaste, and starts to squeeze something that definitely _isn’t_ toothpaste out of it and onto one of the mines he had shown them both earlier.

Hana sucks in a deep breath, and pushes her mech forward, activating the boosters once more. The tanks fire, but as Lúcio hits play and the music kicks in, it’s clear the sudden boost in speed they gain wasn’t something they had expected. The missiles soar past them, the mech blazing by too quickly for the cumbersome cannons to correct their aim.

The skull-faced man starts to fire as soon as they’re within range, but Hana raises the mech’s defence matrix and continues to close the distance between them. Shot after shot after shot hit the shield made of light, disappearing as though the barrier had simply eaten them up. Shadows start to swirl around him again, but before he gets the chance to unleash whatever impossible power he was calling upon, Junkrat throws his mine like a perfectly aimed too-heavy frisbee. It skids over the dry ground and comes to a stop when it bumps against the man’s boot.

The Reaper glances down at it for just a second, to try and see what the junker had been fiddling with before the mech had made its charge. The idiot’s trademark insignia, a face with a wide grin and X’ed out eyes, stared up at him, but it had been traced over with some kind of... modelling clay.

He looks back up just as Hana launches the mech into the air. As they start to soar over his head, he can see the passengers’ faces as clear as day.

Jamison Fawkes is holding his mine detonator aloft, as proudly as though he were carrying an Olympic torch. Suddenly the Reaper understands what had been traced on top of the logo.

Plastic explosives.

And Lúcio _winks_.

Hana briefly feels a rush of heat against the bottom of the mech’s chassis, but they’re soaring over the top of the centre vehicle, and once they land on the other side, it’s a clear shot to the Orca. It’s only then that she lets her focus fade a little, and she’s able to hears the sounds of a massive explosion behind her, and Lúcio and Junkrat’s screams of joy.

The next few minutes blur together in a rushed haze of adrenaline. The Orca, bruised from its run-in with the Talon tanks, but otherwise in pretty good shape, scoops the three of them up into its hold. Torbjörn and McCree give Hana and Lúcio hearty claps on the back and warm words while Roadhog plucks Jamison off the arm of the tank as easily as picking a ripe apple from a tree. For a long while, the smaller Junker simply talks his bodyguard’s ear off, giving a rambling recount of what happened after they split up.

The canisters Jesse had mentioned turns out to be some sort of healing gas Roadhog carries on him. Lúcio had planned to play a healthy dose of his healing beats on the way home anyway, but he decides to start them almost immediately after hearing the way the giant bodyguard wheezes behind his mask.

Hana rests her cheek against Lúcio’s shoulder, casting her gaze around the Orca’s cabin. 

McCree was sitting in the corner, his Stetson tilted over his face, breathing softly. If he wasn’t asleep already, he would be soon.

Torbjörn had attempted to argue that he should pilot the Orca back to Gibraltar himself, somehow managing not to outright _say_ he didn’t trust Athena, though he wasn’t fooling anyone. Luckily all McCree had to say was “Elise” and he was running to the nearest computer to make a video call, which he was quietly continuing in the opposite corner.

It had taken a while, but Junkrat had eventually gone quiet next to his silent friend. He was far from still however - he drummed his hands against his legs and the seats beside him to the rhythm. Even Roadhog tapped his foot to the beat, and Hana watched the giant spike on his left boot go up and down, up and down.

“What d’ya think?” Lúcio whispers to her, watching the two of them.

“I think,” she says, “that we are in for a bumpy ride.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) beijando: Portuguese, "kissing"... assuming I conjugating that verb correctly  
> 2) While watching The Last Bastion I came to think of Ganymede as female due to the nest building, but who knows man, who knows  
> 3) skiljer: Swedish, "separate/divide"  
> 4) papão: Portuguese, short for bicho-papão, meaning "boogeyman"  
> 5) Okay so in-game Hana's mech crashes to the ground and she has to climb into it, it doesn't form around her like the most heavy metal magical girl transformation ever, but shhh, action sequences


End file.
